Hell Is Other People
by TheLandlord'sDaughter
Summary: "This place was supposed to be my hell. But now I'm gonna make it yours." [Kai/Bonnie]
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Oh my goodness, you guys. This pairing. It just wouldn't leave me alone…and then this happened. Sorrynotsorry. I honestly have no idea where this is gonna end up, but thank you if you take the time and go on this creepy, crazy journey with me. Small note: this starts right after the episode where Damon comes back (6x05), assuming that the Ascendant got smashed too badly to be put back together and used again. Okay? Okay. **

XXX

"Oh, good, you're awake. I was so bored waiting. I'm awful at sitting still. Which is, you know, fitting, I guess, since that's all I've really been doing for the past twenty years. Twenty years of waiting and sitting still and being bored. Now _that's_ hell."

Five seconds of consciousness, and already Kai was talking too much. Bonnie tried to sit up, but quickly remembered why she shouldn't when the sharp, stabbing pain in her stomach came rushing back, worse than the last time.

The last time I wasn't thinking about the arrow in my gut, she reminded herself. I was thinking about getting Damon home. And honestly, I was kinda expecting to die. Being dead already and all. But this, right now, wasn't death. This was pain and same old Salvatore boarding house in 1994 and, unfortunately, Kai. She'd traded an annoying companion for a psychotic one. Great.

"Shh, shh," Kai held out a hand to stop her sitting up when he heard her sharp intake of breath. "Don't move. You'll ruin my suture."

Perplexed, Bonnie pulled up her still-bloodsoaked shirt. In the center of her stomach was a wound, with uneven, crisscrossing stitches holding it together.

She turned back to Kai, who was sitting across from her, rolling something between his hands. She was still a little foggy, but could see that it was late afternoon, judging by the orange light coming in through the windows, and she was sprawled on one of the Salvatore's living room couches, the ones so soft that you sunk in to the cushions, feeling comfortable but also sort of suffocated. She looked back at the jagged stitches in her stomach.

"You did this?" she said.

"Huh? Yeah," said Kai, who was still fascinated by whatever he was holding and not looking at her.

"Why?" said Bonnie. "You could've just let me die."

"I guess I could've. But, what's the fun in just _letting _somebody die, you know what I mean?"

"Not really," Bonnie said coldly. The more awake she got, the more aware she was of who she was talking to.

"Well, anyway, I couldn't have you and your magic dying on me, now could I? I'd just be stuck in this bland boring hellscape forever with nothing to do."

"Right." Bonnie sighed, sinking down in to the cushions again. "And I'm guessing you want me and my magic to get you out of here. Well, if you think I'm gonna let—"

Kai cut her off, striding over and kneeling down next to the couch to show her what was in his hand. "Yeah, I'm afraid that's no longer an option, Bon-Bon. See this here?" He held up a tiny jagged piece of metal, about the size of a stick of gum. "This is the biggest piece left of what used to be the Ascendant. Thanks to you and your little martyr act, the rest of it has been crushed. In to dust. And poof"—he put his hands up, expanding out as if away from an explosion—"blown away. No more ruby slippers. No more going home."

"Oh, how sad," Bonnie smiled ruefully. "I guess you'll miss out on that big family reunion you had planned."

Something seemed to flicker in Kai's eyes, something that made Bonnie almost want to flinch away from whatever he was about to do. But instead, he let out a breath and smiled back at her, running a sharp edge of the metal piece across her cheek, light enough that she was only aware enough to be nervous.

"Guess so," he said. "But lucky for me, I've got you to distract me now."

"What, you want to be best pals now?" Bonnie said, stubbornly ignoring the fact that Kai and the piece of metal were both making her skin crawl. "You tried to kill me."

"And you tried to kill me! Isn't that great? It's got a great symmetry to it."

"You know," said Bonnie, shoving Kai's hand away from her face, "I think I'd rather live on the other side of the planet, if you don't mind."

Kai paused, pulled back to a standing position. "If that's what you want. Go ahead. Don't say I didn't try to be friendly."

He left the room abruptly, taking the metal piece with him. Bonnie lay staring at the ceiling, wondering what the hell had just happened. She'd counted on his stubbornness, had been expecting to wait until she was healed and then make a break for it, maybe to Florida. Florida sounded nice this time of year, and if she wasn't going home, at least she could wait it out somewhere with palm trees and beaches and a soft, salty breeze, and she could hide away so Kai couldn't find her and try to use her magic again…

Instead, he'd just given up, apparently. Weird, but she wasn't going to pass up an opportunity staring her in the face.

It took some time, but Bonnie eventually worked herself up to a sitting position that didn't make her feel like she was being stabbed all over again, and once she'd tried that out, she slowly placed her feet on the ground, one by one, and gripped the arm of the couch to get to a standing position. Once she was up, it wasn't so bad. It felt good to move again. She grabbed a jacket she'd left by the door, and hopefully before Kai had had time to reconsider, she was out of the house, heading she didn't know where. All that was important was that it was away.

She didn't notice anything was off until she got nearly to the edge of the sweeping lawn outside, when she was just starting to enjoy the cool breeze and the sunshine filtered through the trees, trying to remind herself that there were still good things, even in this eerie, empty world. It was then that she felt a sort of resistance on the ground. Like she was suddenly walking through wet sand, instead of grass. She looked at the bottoms of her shoes, wondering if she'd gotten something stuck there. But no, there was nothing.

She continued on in to the street, and the more she did, the more she felt it; a resistance, as if she were trying to pull two ends of an elastic band apart. By the time she got to the other end of the road, she couldn't move any further forward at all.

She tried anyway, willing her arms and legs to press on, but it was impossible. Her heart sank slowly as she fought against whatever was holding her. She should've known it was too easy. An infuriated cry sticking in her chest, she marched back the way she'd come.

Five minutes later, she was bursting through the front doors of the Salvatore house again, immediately meeting Kai in the front entryway, who was crunching gleefully on a handful of pork rinds.

"What did you do?" she said, trying to remain calm even as her hands were shaking with rage and frustration.

"Figured it out, didja? How far did you get? Ten feet? Twenty?"

"What. Did. You. Do," Bonnie repeated.

Kai tilted his head thoughtfully. "Well, while you were knocked out, I may have borrowed some of your magic. I figured you owed me for stitching you up. And then I remembered this little gem of a spell from when I was a kid. My parents used to use it when I wanted to leave and they wanted to, you know, _torture me_. Basically, wherever I go, you've gotta go, too. I figured this would be a great way to make sure I don't lose track of my magic charm."

"_Magic charm?"_ Bonnie repeated, her voice lowering nearly to a whisper. To anyone who knew her well, that would be a danger sign.

"Yeah. I've been thinking of a nickname for you. I mean, Bon-Bon is nice, but it's more Damon's thing, and I wanted something that was just, you know, mine—"

"What good is magic to you? The Ascendant doesn't work! You can't get out!" said Bonnie.

Kai smiled indulgently at her. "Bonnie, come on. You know as well as I do that every spell has a loophole. There's always something you can do. If you have magic, that is. There's something. Trust me."

"Right," Bonnie said, her voice rising to a shaky yell. "Trust you. You're a murderer, a liar, a psychopath, you shot me with an arrow, stole my magic, and now you've trapped me here with you. But yeah, trust you."

"Hey, you know, you have to admit it hasn't been all bad, me and you. Remember before you found out about the whole family murder thing, you liked me a little bit."

"That is—" Bonnie started, but Kai kept talking, inching closer, reaching for her hand.

"Even Damon noticed. I think that's why he was a little touchy. I think he's gotten to be kind of protective of you, which is really sweet, when you think about it…"

"Would you shut up?"

"I guess I have some competition. But now, it's just you and me here. The only two people in the world. Kind of romantic, isn't it?"

He had taken her hand, fingers threaded through hers. But he didn't have very long to enjoy it, because as soon as he'd said "romantic", Bonnie had taken her other hand, already balled into a fist, and punched him in the nose.

The shocked look in his eyes almost made the whole crappy day worth it, as far as Bonnie was concerned. Kai let out a yell of pain and surprise, his hands flying to his nose, which was already starting to bleed. At that point Bonnie figured she was all in, so she kicked him in the stomach. Hard.

He crumpled on the ground, and one last kick to the head left him totally knocked out.

It was sort of alarming how satisfied the sight of a bloody-nosed, unconscious Kai made her. But she wasn't about to hang around and wait for him to wake up. She stepped past his immobile form, muttering to herself as she went, "At least I can shower now without him hanging around."

XXX

It was dark out by the time Kai finally came to. Bonnie had been upstairs taking a much-needed nap in one of the spare bedrooms, but she could still tell when he was up and about judging by the bangs and thuds coming from downstairs.

In retrospect, maybe pissing off a psychopath that she literally couldn't run away from or kill hadn't been the smartest move. But, damn, it had felt good.

After a few minutes of listening for movement downstairs, her stomach working itself into knots as she waited for the stairs to squeak under his Converse shoes, she finally decided she might as well get it over with and go downstairs.

Bonnie found him at the cluttered kitchen table, apparently staring off in to space while he held a bag of frozen blueberries to his head and a slightly bloody handkerchief to his nose. She had to clench her jaw to keep from smiling at the sight.

"There she is," Kai said as soon as she'd walked in. "My magic charm. That also likes to beat me up."

"Yeah," said Bonnie. She hovered by the edge of the door, hesitating over how safe it would be to come in. "I would say sorry, but…you know…"

"I get it. I do," said Kai, dropping the blueberries and the handkerchief on the table. "I annoy people. And then they annoy me, and then, sometimes…" He mimed stabbing an invisible person in the stomach, twisting an imaginary knife. "But this is a weird situation. Cause, you know, you literally can't kill me. And I can't kill you or lose you, because then I'm stuck magic-less again, and that really sucked the first couple of decades. So, here we are."

"I could always kill myself," said Bonnie, stubbornly holding his gaze. "No more Bennett magic. No more Bennett blood. Then you'd really be stuck. I'd call that a noble cause, dying to stop you from ever getting out—"

Kai shot out of his chair, sending it screeching back on the tile floor. "You can't—" he started to say, but caught the desperate note in his own voice and instead let out a roar of frustration, coming toward her from around the table, forcing her to back against the wall. "God! Why do you have to be so _noble_ all the time? What the hell difference does it make to you what happens to my family?"

"I don't want people to die! How complicated is that?" said Bonnie.

He laughed, a strange sound in the tense, echoing room. "Right. But you'd kill me the second we got out of here without flinching."

"And you'd do the same to me," Bonnie replied.

Kai smiled, though the light didn't reach his eyes. "And you thought we were _so_ different, didn't you?"

Bonnie felt like the breath had been taken out of her. She stood there, unable to say anything, and the silence stretched on and on until she started to think it must reach everywhere. Which, come to think of it, it did.

Finally, Kai broke the silence, back to a chipper tone as if nothing had happened. "Well, anyway, before we kill each other, want a drink?"

XXX

Three drinks in, miraculously, Kai was starting to get less creepy and the world seemed less quiet.

Seven drinks in, things were warm and cozy and who cared about Kai because everything was spinning anyway.

"To the Salvatores' weirdly huge liquor cabinet," Bonnie said, holding up a glass to clink.

"To alcoholism," Kai agreed, clinking with her. Both of them were sprawled on the living room rug, surrounded by CDs, bottles, and glasses. Bonnie had smiled, thinking that if Damon were here he would have freaked to see the disorder, not to mention all the fluids and glass next to the CDs. Damon was very protective of his CDs.

After taking a swallow of what was probably bourbon (Bonnie wasn't good with drinks, but it wasn't like it mattered right now anyway), she leaned back on her elbows, enjoying the spinning ceiling and the R.E.M in the background. "You know," she said, slurring her words together slightly so that whole sentences melded themselves together, "when Damon and I got here I thought he was the last person on earth I'd ever want to be stuck with. But now I realize that's not true. _You're _the last person I'd ever want to be stuck with."

Kai raised his glass in mock toast. "Back atcha, Bon-Bon."

"So funny how that keeps happening to me," she said. Nestling her glass into the carpet, she laid her head down, eyes closed. "I feel like I've died a lot. Do you ever feel like that?"

"Oh, yeah," said Kai. "Though for me, it just never takes. I've tried shooting myself, drowning myself, suffocating…that one where you leave a car running in a closed garage, whatever that one's called…I think I'd recommend that one, by the way. If you're gonna kill yourself, that's not a bad way."

"I'll make a mental note," Bonnie said.

"Never died permanently, though."

"Nope," said Bonnie. "Me, neither." Her eyes were closed, her head slumped to the side. Kai watched her steady breathing with half lidded eyes. He was lying on his side, head held up with one hand. "Have to try it sometime…" she said with a yawn, and then slowly slipped into sleep.

"Bonnie," Kai whispered, as softly as he could manage. "Are you awake?"

There was no answer except for her deep, slow breath. Kai smiled to himself. "Good," he said. He sidled up close to her, as if they were sharing a pillow.

"I have a secret to tell you," he said. "You won't tell anybody, will you?" Again, silence.

"Okay. Here it is. See, I lied about the magic charm thing. You're right, I am _such _a liar. The thing is, that Ascendant was the only way I've ever known of to get out. And you blew that for me, Bonnie. And now I might actually be stuck here forever. Magic or no magic.

When you wait twenty years for an opportunity, Bon, it kinda pisses you off when it gets taken away from you. So that's really why I'm making you stay."

A piece of hair had fallen across her face, and Kai tenderly tucked it back behind her ear.

"This place was supposed to be my hell. But now I'm gonna make it yours."

Bonnie hadn't heard a word he'd said, if the peaceful look on her sleeping face was any indication. Still smiling in a fond sort of way, he kissed her softly on the forehead.

"Sweet dreams, Bonnie."

XXX


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks for all the nice reviews, guys! Hope you enjoy. **

It felt awfully familiar to Bonnie, waking up aching and disoriented, unable to sit up. Only this time it was less because of the arrow in the stomach and more because of the horrible pounding in her head. She opened her eyes slightly and was blinded by the light streaming in through the living room windows. Groaning, she pressed her hands to her eyes and heard Kai's footsteps into the room like a drum in her head.

"Morning, sunshine," he said loudly.

"Please die," said Bonnie.

"I'm making breakfast. You sick of pancakes yet?"

"Yes," she answered, but he had already gone back to the kitchen, not bothering to wait for a reply.

XXX

Four months spent watching and waiting to make a move, Kai had managed to gather a lot of useful information. Like the fact that Damon reached for a bottle in times of distress, or that Bonnie would go to crazy lengths to protect her friends. He'd been able to pick up a lot about Damon, who liked the sound of his own voice to fill the silence. About Elena (and their epic love, god, just shut up already), about Alaric (best friend, died, then didn't die? Whatever), Caroline (too perfect to exist, apparently), Stefan (brother, self-righteous, ex squirrel eater. Gross), and their little circle of supernatural buddies back in the non-hell-dimension Mystic Falls. He'd learned all about Damon's moods, opinions, habits, you name it.

Bonnie, on the other hand. Bonnie liked to be a closed book. Which made unraveling her all the more interesting. Over the course of four months he'd managed to learn precious little, which he still stored away should it ever come in handy. This was, mostly, the extent of it:

1. She loved cinnamon rolls, cinnamon coffee, cinnamon in pumpkin pies, but she hated cinnamon gum.

2. She was not a morning person. A conversation in the late evening usually went much more smoothly than one after she had just woken up.

3. She didn't like small spaces, and stayed away from the Salvatore basement, which had a lot of them, as much as possible. Very interesting.

4. She was a terrible cook, and so was Damon, and it had been hilarious to watch them try to follow directions on a box of Hamburger Helper a few nights when they were tired of frozen pizza or scrambled eggs.

5.. More than a few times, she'd gone out of her way to make sure the fridges were stocked with blood bags or had washed dishes by herself without complaining. She was kinder than she'd let Damon believe.

6. She actually liked to do laundry. (Which made her a freak in Kai's book).

7. Sometimes, when she thought she was alone, she would sit very still in a living room chair and cry quietly. But only if she knew Damon wouldn't be home for hours. She didn't like to let people see her break down.

Good start, but not really enough. He'd have to change that.

It took a while, but Bonnie eventually made her way into the kitchen, clutching a blanket around her shoulders and looking half-dead.

"Good night's sleep?" Kai asked. He was flipping pancakes with what Bonnie thought was unnecessary flair, though at least that stupid childish grin seemed to have temporarily disappeared.

"I spent the night on the floor…with like two bottles of bourbon in my system. What do you think?" Bonnie rested her head in her hands. "How come you're not hungover?"

"Because after trying and failing to die of alcohol poisoning a few times, you eventually figure out what your limit is," said Kai.

"Right." Bonnie tightened the blanket around her. "When I woke up I had this on me. Did you do that?"

Kai shrugged, starting to pile pancakes on two plates. "Yeah. Just…thought maybe you were cold."

Bonnie looked down again, slightly puzzled by this small act of kindness. Kai gave her a sideways, calculating glance that, fortunately for him, she was oblivious to.

"Whipped cream?" he asked.

She replied with a dead-eyed expression. He shrugged, drew a smiley face on her stack of pancakes in Reddi-Wip. Holding the plate out like a white flag, he said, "Hey…can we start over?"

Bonnie fixed him with a skeptical glare. "What do you mean, 'start over'?"

"I mean…" Kai looked away. Have to let her think, he told himself. Wonder about it. She'll be more receptive in the evening, remember. "Nevermind."

She took the plate from him. "We're still not gonna be friends, if that's what you were thinking."

"Friendless existence. As per usual. Got it."

She didn't take it back, but she looked chastened, ever-so-slightly. Kai made an effort not to smile. Nice people were so easy to fuck with.

XXX

Kai was being unusually un-obnoxious this morning, and it was making Bonnie nervous. She'd thought his constant chatter was irritating, distracting, but over breakfast it was all but gone, and the silence was somehow much worse.

"Heading out somewhere?" he asked as soon as she'd stood up from the table.

"Obviously not." She said sharply. "I'm going upstairs to lie down."

"Okay." He smiled gently. "Feel better."

Bonnie nodded jerkily in reply. She felt weirdly exposed, silently leaving the room with his gaze following her. She fought the urge to rush back into the room, grab him by the neatly pressed collar of his shirt, and tell him to, for god's sake, just do something horrible, because waiting for it is worse.

But that wouldn't get her anywhere, she knew. And if Kai was planning on leaving her alone for a while, she wasn't going to argue.

Upstairs in her room—the room she'd claimed as hers four months ago when she and Damon had unofficially decided that they would set up camp at the Salvatore boarding house—she had in the closet everything she should need to counter a boundary spell. The only thing she couldn't be sure of was if she had enough time.

Just in case, she kept a knife by her side while she flipped through Grams' grimoire, looking for the spell. It wasn't too difficult. She'd need salt, candles…of course, Kai would be sure to smell the smoke and come running…Bonnie's hand twitched towards the knife. If she could take him out of action for one hour, would it be enough time to break the spell and put a good amount of distance between them? Maybe.

Hell with it. She'd take her chances. If Kai came bursting in, he'd get a (temporary) taste of his own gut-stabbing medicine.

After setting out three candles and a circle of salt, Bonnie sat on the floor, the grimoire open over her crossed legs, and murmured the incantation under her breath, so she herself could barely hear.

_Merabas hic libatal, confremun signas, omus quisa tentum exalis…_

XXX

Kai was asleep. Sort of. He'd mastered the art of in-between. And in his half-asleep brain, he could sense magic nearby, feeling the kind of pressure on his skin some people feel before a rainstorm. It felt good, even if he did know exactly why it was happening. So Bonnie was trying to break out of her cage. Too bad for her, the Gemini coven excelled in all things concealing and confining, and they didn't like to make their work easy to undo.

He'd decided to let her try. Give her some feeling of control. Plus, he did kinda love to feel her at work.

Eyes closed, he could smell that burnt, electric smell, the one he always associated with power, could feel her lips forming the archaic words as if she were whispering against his skin. It was something he could never explain, not even to another witch. And he pictured, with a twisted smile, the look on Bonnie's face if she knew what she was doing to him. But too soon, the pressure was gone, evaporated into the air. The spell was over.

Any minute now, he could expect her to come sneaking downstairs, muscles tense, eyes looking out across the room to see what he was doing. Stretching his hand out to the coffee table, he picked up the first thing he found there—Entertainment Weekly with the cast of Melrose Place on the cover.

"Can you believe they gave Natural Born Killers a B minus?" Kai asked aloud once he heard her coming down the stairs to the entryway again. "Such bull. Do people like that movie in 2014?"

Bonnie didn't answer, her mouth in a stubborn, humorless line. "I'm going for a walk," she said.

"Kay. Don't talk to any strangers," Kai quipped, although Bonnie was out the door before she could have heard it.

Within ten minutes, she was back through the door again, slamming it behind her, running her fingers through her hair and grabbing the ends like she wanted to tear it out.

"That was a short walk," he said mildly, still flipping idly through the magazine he'd probably seen a thousand times before.

Bonnie threw the jacket she'd been holding on the floor. "Yeah, you've made sure of that," she said before storming off again.

XXX

It was a quiet day after that, with both of them hiding out in different parts of the house. Bonnie, because she was frustrated her only plan so far hadn't worked, wondering what she ought to try next, wishing, stupidly, that Damon was back so she could have someone to complain to. Kai, because he was waiting.

They met again after dark, in the kitchen, where this time Bonnie was the one sitting alone, poking idly at the leftovers of a burned stir fry she and Damon had made a few days ago.

"Rough day?" Kai asked, appearing in the doorway in that uncomfortably sudden way Bonnie hated.

She glared up at him. "Could you not pretend to be nice right now? Why don't you just go and look for some magical loophole to use me for and leave me alone."

"Look, I'm sorry, okay?" Bonnie looked taken aback to hear those words coming out of his mouth. Which he'd been hoping for. "I know my way of handling things has been…"

"Insane?" she suggested.

"…unorthodox. I'm just…I think I've spent too much time alone. It's made me forget how to be with people. I just got so excited to think that there was a way I could get home."

"And get your revenge," Bonnie finished for him.

"See, that's the thing." Kai settled himself in the chair across from Bonnie. "All this time I've been alone, just thinking about how unfair it is that I'm here and how much I hate my family for doing this to me. The idea that I could get out and make them pay for what they did has been the only thing that's kept me going."

His voice was earnest, steady. Bonnie studied him, still skeptical.

"But now…" Kai said, "now I see you and Damon, how you believed that he could still be good, after everything he's done. It made me wonder if maybe…there was another way to go."

Bonnie's expression hadn't changed. "Why are you telling me this?" she asked.

"I don't know." He looked down, smiling boyishly. "I think maybe…you've had a good influence on me, Bonnie. I've never met someone like you before. You've made me realize there's more to life than revenge. I still want to get out of here. Remember what the world is like with people in it. But I don't want to hurt anybody."

Kai paused, waiting for a reaction. Bonnie leaned forward slightly, setting down her fork. "Give me one good reason why I should believe a single word out of your mouth."

He'd been expecting that, and he had an ace up his sleeve. "I don't have any proof or anything," he said modestly. "I mean, this is kind of a recent revelation." From out of his pocket, he pulled a crumpled photograph. It showed a family picnic in the summertime. A dark-haired boy and girl in tie-dye tee shirts smiled to the camera, the boy's arm around the girl. In the background, their father was passing by with a bowl of potato salad. The whole picture played out on a green, sprawling lawn while other, blurry kids played and ran in the distance.

"Me and my sister," Kai explained. "We were eight, I think. I've been looking at this picture a lot lately. I don't know why, I guess. I've just been thinking about Jo. Josette, that was her name. We looked so happy there, didn't we?"

He held the picture out to Bonnie. She held it, a little reluctantly. "You haven't been home for years," she said. "You've kept this with you the whole time?"

"Yeah. Just something about it…I don't know. I just didn't want to leave it behind. My family had some good times, too. I don't want to forget them."

Kai could see Bonnie's stoic expression softening, ever so slightly. Bingo.

"Look, I wanted to say this because I know you can't stand me. You want to go off somewhere by yourself, and I understand that. But without your magic I have no hope of ever going home. And…I might have a way where we could both get what we want."

Bonnie paused, sizing him up, with his eager eyes and childish vintage tee shirt almost begging for her to feel pity for him. And she wasn't stupid. She knew he was a liar, a manipulator, and it would be entirely in his own interest to be having a revelation like this one when it meant giving him what he wanted. Even so…she'd seen a new look in his eyes just now, when he was showing her the picture, talking about his family. An edge of something, she didn't know exactly what. But as much as she disliked him, she didn't want to stamp it out.

After what felt to Kai like a tense eternity, Bonnie said flatly, "All right. I'm listening."

XXX

He dragged her by the hand out into the living room like a kid on Christmas morning. "The spell's pretty simple, really," he was saying, setting out black candles on the coffee table. "Just the usual chanting, candles going out ominously, yadda yadda."

"So what does it do, exactly?" Bonnie said. She stood back, her arms crossed.

"We create a link which allows you to share your magic with me. This way, it won't wear off the way it would if I just, you know, took it." Kai glanced sideways at her. "Then, we each have magic, I'll lift the boundary spell, we split up the world and go our separate ways, everyone's happy. Do you mind if I take Australia? I've always wanted to go to Australia."

With a flash that made Bonnie want to jump back, Kai drew out a small paring knife. It had been in the kitchen a minute ago, and it was unsettling that she hadn't noticed him taking it. "We'll need this," he said. "Small bit of blood required."

Bonnie nodded, though the sight of Kai with a knife was making her wonder why she'd agreed to this.

"And right after we're finished here…" she said slowly, "you'll take away the boundary spell so I can leave."

Kai grinned at her, tracing an X on his chest with the dull end of the knife. "Cross my heart," he said.

Hesitantly, Bonnie joined him in the center of the living room, across from the candles he'd set out.

"Would you like to do the honors?" he asked her.

Bonnie sighed lightly. "_Phasmatos incendia." _The candles lit themselves, and Kai smiled giddily.

"Never get tired of that," he said. "Okay. Repeat after me. _Ingressus sum, sanguis, sanabit nos_."

"_Ingressus sum, sanguis, sanabit nos." _

"_Mens tua aperiet, phasmatos, invenire metus."_

"_Mens tua aperiet, phasmatos, invenire metus."_

While they spoke, Kai drew the blade slowly across his palm, leaving a small trail of blood first on his right hand, then his left. He offered the knife to Bonnie, telling her to do the same.

"Keep going," he said, and they repeated the chant together while Bonnie cut into the palms of her own hands. She kept eye contact with Kai as she did, as if daring him to look her in the eye and lie to her.

She handed the knife back to him, and he let it fall to the floor, taking her hands instead. Bonnie tried not to wince at the way the contact stung on her open wounds, and instead kept saying the chant, over and over with him, waiting for something to happen. Kai had his eyes closed and so, reluctantly, Bonnie closed hers, too.

They repeated the words until, to Bonnie, they no longer sounded like words. It felt like a hypnotic pulse, instead. Nearly putting her to sleep. And a strange sensation was starting to come over her. It was like she couldn't feel his hands anymore. Or the floor underneath her. Or, she could feel that they were there, but she didn't know where they started and she stopped. Starting to panic, Bonnie opened her eyes again and tried to wrench her hands away, but Kai's grip was too strong. He kept repeating the chant, holding her wrists tightly until the strange feeling started to seem overwhelming, and she didn't know if she could take it anymore—

In a quick breath of smoke, the candles went out. Kai opened his eyes and let go of Bonnie's hands.

"What was—" Bonnie gasped, feeling the room starting to return to normal. "What did you—"

Kai smiled, but it wasn't the shy, boyish smile of a few minutes ago. "That was fun, wasn't it? God, I love magic. It's like…almost better than sex."

"What happened?" Bonnie asked, still out of breath. This was feeling all wrong. "Did it work?"

"Oh, the magic sharing thing? Yeah. About that. What was that phrase Damon mentioned, said it was annoying...? Oh, right. _Jk_."

Bonnie was starting to feel sick.

"See, I just needed you to think that's what we were doing so I could get you to open your mind and I could do this," said Kai. With one swift motion, he placed his hands on each side of her head, framing her face as if was about to kiss her. Instead, Bonnie felt a searing pain in the center of her forehead, making her knees buckle. It felt like something inside her head that didn't belong there. A violent intrusion. She cried out, clawing at Kai's hands to get him off, which, after a few agonizing seconds, he did.

"You've just given me an all-access pass inside your head," said Kai. "So thoughtful of you, Bonnie. Now I'll know what to get you for your birthday. Not to mention every memory, every fear, every insecurity, every tiny little worry in your pretty head."

Kai smiled. "We're gonna have so much fun, you and I."

XXX


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hey guys! Been a longer break, hasn't it? I started my first big-girl job out of college this past week. Good for the money, bad for the writing. But don't worry. My heart still belongs to this fuckery. **

**A/N (Part 2): Excuse me while I have a little fangirl moment. I realized a little while after I posted the second chapter of this that I actually MET Chris Wood (!) several years ago when he was in the touring company of Spring Awakening. My friends and I talked to him and got some pictures with him after the show, and he was really cool and nice. SORRY just had to tell you guys, because when I found out I'D MET KAI, I freaked and I knew you all would understand. **

**A/N (Part 3): (He may or may not have been tagged as "sexiest man alive" in my Facebook photos all this time.) **

XXX

Bonnie staggered back, her head still pounding, knees shaking. This was not happening. Not happening, not happening. In her frantic brain, the only complete thought was that she had to wipe that awful, sadistic smile off his face. She picked up the knife he'd dropped on the floor moments ago.

"Ooh, you gonna stab me, Bonnie? Taking a page out of my playbook, aren't you?" Kai laughed, grabbing her by the wrist, keeping the knife locked between them. "_Oh, Bonnie, you've had such a good influence on me_. _I don't wanna hurt anyone, Bonnie." _

"Bastard," she hissed through clenched teeth, trying to jerk her hand away.

"Was that thing with the picture too much? Because it felt so cheesy and I was thinking to myself, 'she can't possibly be buying this', but I you _really_ did, didn't you? That's gotta be awkward."

Bonnie felt a surge of adrenaline—maybe from shock, maybe from anger, maybe from terror. Probably all of the above. Either way, she wrenched her arm out of Kai's grip and swiped at him with the knife, not really caring where she got him, just wanting to make him hurt. Make him bleed. Make him shut up.

She seemed to watch in slow-motion as the knife stuck in his chest, scraping against ribs. Kai let out a startled groan, lurching forward, but ended up laughing against the pain.

"You don't have a lot of experience with this, do you?" he said. "Wanna get your hands dirty?" He was gripping the handle of the blade, guiding Bonnie's hand back to it. "Come on, Bon, kill me like you mean it."

_Are you enjoying this, you sick freak? _The words stuck in her throat. Because, in some deep, dark corner of her mind, she had to admit. She was enjoying it a little.

She pushed harder on the handle, her other hand wrapped around his neck for balance. She had never hurt someone like this before—without magic, without distance. There was something so intimate about it, hearing his breath catch, seeing bright blood starting to ooze out of his mouth. He died smiling, slumped out of her arms on the living room floor.

For a long moment Bonnie stood there, shaking, hearing her breath go sharply in and out, her mind unable to function enough to wonder what to do next. She did the only thing that made sense. She ran, out the front door, onto the moonlit front drive. The cool night air rushed past, waking her up enough to wonder, desperately, whether Kai's death might make the spell he'd put up go away, at least for a little while. She might have just bought herself a window. She headed for the end of the lawn.

It had been a slim chance, but the disappointment still hit like a brick wall when she felt that same dragging, resistant feeling on the edge of the Salvatore property, making it impossible to go any further. She was still stuck.

"God…" she sat down there, on the edge of the lawn, feeling panic pressing on her chest. Trapped with a psychopath who could get into her head, who she could only temporarily subdue…nobody around to help, to hear her scream…

No. She would not spiral. She was better than that. She was better than him.

Bonnie made an effort to take deep breaths. _I will think of something. I will think of something_, she repeated in her head until the words no longer made sense.

She stayed in the damp, cool grass for what felt like a long while, holding her head in her hands, trying to gather her thoughts. It occurred to her, suddenly and painfully, that she missed the presence of another person. A non-insane person.

"Hey, Damon," she found herself saying quietly to the empty air. "I actually miss you, can you believe it?"

XXX

She still had some time before Kai woke up again. When she peered back through the open front door of the house, she could see him lying there, bloody and battered and still. Even so, it made her uneasy, moving past him on the way to the kitchen. She had the feeling that he could pop up unexpectedly at any time, grabbing hold of her ankle like a monster under her childhood bed.

Over the sink in the kitchen, she washed the blood—his or hers, she didn't know—from her hands, the cuts she'd made burning under hot water. She'd need a bandage, which were in the upstairs bathroom, past Kai again. How long was he normally out when he "died"? One hour? Thirty minutes? Bonnie had no idea how much time she'd spent out on the lawn.

She crept quietly past him again, up the stairs and into the bathroom, rooting around in the cupboards until she found white gauze and wrapped it a few turns around each hand. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she realized she was a mess—blood all over her shirt and her hair sticking out in strange angles, a crazed look in her eyes. She hastily ran a brush through her hair, the soothing motions giving her some small sense of normalcy.

Stopping at the edge of the stairs to listen for any sign of movement downstairs, Bonnie next made her way to her room for a clean shirt. She didn't know what to do next, except to clean up, regroup. There had to be some way to break the boundary spell, or break whatever weird mind-meld thing Kai had done, or if not, maybe there was a way to keep Kai subdued. If she could find some sedatives in the medicine cabinet…it wouldn't work forever, but it would buy some time.

Not wanting to risk the noise of the door closing, Bonnie left it open as she hastily slipped out of her stained shirt and grabbed the first clean one she could find in her room—an oversized flannel button-down. He had her back turned away from the open door, which she realized a moment too late had been a stupid thing to do.

Her hand had barely touched the first button when she heard a tiny creak as the door opened further, and before she'd had time to turn around, Kai had grabbed her—one bloody arm snaked around her waist, the other holding the paring knife to her throat.

"Hey, Bon," Kai murmured, his lips against her hair. "Don't you just hate it when you die right when things are getting interesting? I had big plans for tonight." Bonnie struggled, let out a small breath when she felt the knife digging into her skin.

"Thought we could open a bottle of wine, maybe light some incense…and then get right down to, you know, me slowly destroying your mind. Is this a new shampoo you're using? Cause I like it."

"_Motus_." Bonnie broke free of his hold as the spell sent him flying backwards, crashing against the open door. During the second or so when Kai was too dazed to stand up, Bonnie ran back out into the hallway and down the stairs. She had no idea where to go. There were only so many places to hide, and Kai would eventually find her.

He seemed to agree, because once she was in the front hall again, she heard him calling from upstairs: "You know, I kinda admire your struggling. It's cute. You know when you trap a bug under a paper cup and it just keeps scurrying around, like it can find a way out? Well, I mean, I wouldn't know from experience, I was more the frying with a magnifying glass type…"

Bonnie could hear him getting closer to the stairs, her heart hammering against her ribcage. She quickly determined her options. Outside, lots of open space and nowhere to hide. Downstairs, lots of dark corners to get trapped in. This floor, not much better, but she was out of time. She ran as quietly as she could into the kitchen, out of sight, while Kai came down the stairs.

"Bonnie?" he called out, slow and singsong. "This reminds me of playing hide and seek with my little brothers and sisters. I'd always find them. It would take, like, two minutes. They were _so_ terrible at hiding, especially when it counted…"

She was making her way slowly across the kitchen, in the opposite direction from his voice. On some level, she knew he had a point. He'd catch her eventually. But she couldn't go down, at least not without making him pay for it.

As quietly as she could, she filled a glass with water from the sink and overturned it on the floor in front of her, letting it spread across the tiles. As she did, she began to whisper, "_Phasmatos, a terra, surrexerunt ergo et consumet, succendatur, perdere…" _

"Bonnnniieeee," Kai called again. His voice was getting closer now. "You aren't doing magic without me, are you? Insensitive."

He trailed off as he came to the kitchen door and saw her standing there beside a creeping puddle of water, her hands outstretched, still chanting under her breath. Her eyes had been closed, but they flew open as soon as he'd set foot inside the room.

"There you are. Sneaky little witch. Ready to give up?" Kai strode into the room, stepping into the water's path without noticing.

Bonnie smiled, her eyes narrowed. "Almost. _Phasmatos impetum_."

With a twist of her hand, the water around her started to shift. It turned thick and dark like tar, seeping through the cracks in the tiles and sticking to the soles of Kai's shoes. He looked down, skeptical, until she turned her hand again, and the floor was on fire.

The tile turned red-hot, crackling like coals, and Kai sucked air through his teeth as his shoes began to melt away. "Huh," he said, through a grimace. "Nice one, magic charm." She smirked back at him, safe from the flames in her corner of the kitchen.

He tried to take a step, move closer to her, but when he did the fire moved up, scorching his legs. He let out a yell as the flames continued to climb. "This is kind of dark for you, isn't it?" he said. Gritting his teeth, he started to move slowly forward again, every step agony. But he could almost reach her.

Bonnie had her hand outstretched, chanting the incantation again, raising the flames higher. Kai gave a strangled yell as the fire reached his hands, leaving them red and raw. "You really like hurting me, don't you?" he said, his voice hoarse and strangled through the smoke. "It's okay, you can admit it. I won't judge."

She ignored him, continuing the incantation, speeding it up as if she could burn him out of existence if she worked fast enough.

"Because, to be honest, Bon…" Kai stretched out his blackened hand, reaching for hers, just inches away. She didn't move, cornered by her own spell, still saying the words over and over. Finally, with one last step, he grabbed her hand, forcing it into the flame.

"…the feeling's mutual."

She shrieked, feeling the fire and the touch of his hand allowing him a way in. Her head was being split open, his presence like a knife in her insides. He was burning her from the inside out; revenge, she guessed. Fitting. She was choking on smoke, on him, and that was the last thought she remembered before everything turned blissfully, finally black.

XXX

A bright light was on her. She could tell that much without having to open her eyes. Red and orange shapes swam in front of her vision, blinding her, forcing her to remember the world she was waking up to. She tried to put a hand up to shield her face, but there was duct tape around her wrists.

Of course, she thought. Should have figured.

She was in the position so many others—including Kai himself, now that she thought about it—had been in at the Salvatore house: tied up in a chair, waiting to be tortured. Honestly, she'd been expecting something more creative from Kai.

With her eyes closed, she could still tell by the prickling on her skin that he was watching her.

"So, what's the evil plan, then?" Bonnie asked, once she was mostly conscious.

"You're all business this morning," said Kai. Bonnie looked up to see him sitting across from her, the early morning light putting a glint in his pale eyes. "Can we just talk about that fire thing for a second? That was just…crazy. Like, literally, the floor was lava. That's great."

"Hope it hurt," she said.

"Oh, yeah, no question. Thankfully I managed to grab a bit of your magic before you passed out." He gestured to himself. There were no scars, no burns. It was more than a little disappointing. "Healed just like new."

Bonnie looked down at her hand. It was still charred.

"Did you think I would fix you, too? Aw, Bonnie, that's so sweet. You did know I was kidding about that whole having feelings thing, right?"

She was too tired to play games with him. "What do you want, Kai?" she asked.

Kai moved forward in his chair, leaning toward her. "Oh, sorry, was that not clear? I guess I never explained how that spell really worked. Do you mind if I do? Cause, not to brag or anything, but I am kinda proud of it."

Bonnie didn't say anything. She knew he'd keep talking either way.

"See, the spell I used is for linking minds. You know, for therapy and uncovering repressed memories and shit. But since I am an 'abomination' and all, it works differently for me." Kai reached for Bonnie's hand, the one that was still covered in burns. The touch of his fingers felt like a fresh bruise on sensitive skin, and she couldn't help but wince.

"One touch," he said, "and I can take your magic. Or…I can take over your thoughts. I mean, really, both have their upsides. But for now…"

He pressed harder on her hand, closing his eyes. "Let's take a tour."

Bonnie's muscles seized up, expecting a pain like the last time. And it came, as bad as she'd remembered, as if he were scraping her insides with a scalpel. She couldn't see, except for vague shadows on the edge of her vision. She wanted to scream, and she couldn't tell if she actually was or not. There was an incessant noise inside her head, growing louder and louder until it seemed like her head had to explode—

Kai took his hand away. "Huh," he said.

The pain left as quickly as it had come on, though the echo of it still reverberated in her mind. Only a few minutes had passed. It had felt like hours to her.

"What?" she said sharply.

"Your brain is interesting. Like, really. I'm not just saying that." Kai cocked his head, thinking. "There's like…love and compassion and all that ooey gooey crap that clogs up most people's brains. And you've got a lot of it. But there's other stuff, too. Hiding in the corners in there."

Bonnie hated to take the bait, but still—"Like what?"

Kai shrugged coyly. "You tell me, Bonnie. I mean, I barely scratched the surface just now. You probably have all kinds of dark, creepy things hiding in there, just itching to get out. Which, also, P.S, will be way more painful than that little sweep I just did."

She clenched her hands, feeling the resistance of the tape. She knew she could easily use magic to break through it. The problem was, she didn't see the point. Finally, she asked the question that had been lingering in the back of her mind ever since she'd sent Damon away and this plane had become a party of two.

"Why don't you just kill me and get it over with?" she asked.

He smiled like he'd hoped she would ask.

"I didn't lie when I said I'd been thinking about my family," he said. "For almost two decades now I've had nothing but time to think about them. I do have some regrets. Honestly, I do."

Kai laughed. "Not killing them, obviously. I've never regretted that for a second."

"Here's the thing, though. I went for the kill right away. It was quick and dirty…and don't get me wrong, it was satisfying as hell. But after everything they did? They deserved more. I should have gone for the hurt. I should have made it last."

"But you…" he leaned forward, one hand cupping her cheek. "My little charm, who's made it her mission to screw over the one chance I had at getting out of here. I won't make the same mistake with you."

He stared her dead in the eyes, so close they were almost nose-to-nose, and she could feel his breath on her parted lips.

"I'm not gonna kill you, Bonnie. I'm gonna fucking _ruin_ you."

He let his words sink in and then pulled back, giving her a wide smile. "So, anyway. Something to think about while you're sitting there. I'm gonna go get nachos. You want anything?"

She didn't look at him.

"No? Nothing? Okay. Just give me a yell if you do," he said. "I'll be around."

Kai left for the kitchen while Bonnie sat, tensed and breathing hard, her nails digging deep half-moons into the palms of her hands. It felt like a razor on her burned hand, but she didn't really care. She had gone strangely numb.

She felt so deeply tired, trapped under a bell jar, running out of air. And she was so sick of being threatened by him. She was sick of being a throwaway ragdoll in his sadistic game. She'd been waiting on some kind of help—from her friends, from her magic, from karma, even—but she couldn't afford to stall anymore.

She flexed her charred hand, remembering how good it had felt to see him burn; to know that the warm, pulsing pain she was feeling he'd felt too, and worse, even if it hadn't lasted. It was worth it.

So, he wanted to go for the hurt. Fine. Just fine. She'd give as good as she got. She'd make him bleed.

Bonnie smiled to herself as icy adrenaline shot through her veins.

Kai wanted to ruin her?

It would be her pleasure to return the favor.

XXX


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: This is SO overdue and I apologize, especially since you guys are awesome and left me so many great comments for that last chapter. Anyway, hope you like. **

XXX

It seemed a little strange even to him, but one of Kai's favorite things to do was cook.

Maybe it developed out of an affinity for being near fire and sharp things. That was what he liked to think, anyway. Ever since he was little, he'd been fascinated watching fancy chefs on morning cooking shows, wielding knives like an extension of their hands, letting heat and pressure change a food's state like a weird sort of alchemy, watching them make that orgasmic "god, that's good" face when they took a bite for the camera.

Of course, a lot of that stuff was too pretentious and time-consuming, even for someone with two decades to kill. Kai had never been exactly a patient person.

So he became an expert in things like eggs, pasta, chocolate chip cookies. Sounded basic, but he'd perfected them to a point where these were _the best damn scrambled eggs you have ever had, ever will have, end of story._ Only he'd never had a chance to say those words, because it had always been cooking for one until now.

Today he figured, just because he was torturing Bonnie didn't mean he couldn't show off for her, too.

He found her asleep in the room she'd claimed, still bruised and singed, with a slight frown on her face as through her dreams were troubling her. God, she was pretty, though. True, it had been a long time since he'd even seen a real girl, but it wasn't the kind of thing you forgot how to notice. The way her elegant hands held the bedsheets close to her chest, the curve of her hips and legs outlined by white cotton…if she hadn't so royally screwed him over he would have thought he'd won the jackpot.

Kai set the breakfast tray he'd been carrying down on her dresser and sat on the bed beside her. He could think of lots of interesting ways to wake her up, but there were plenty of days ahead of them. He went with grabbing her face with one hand, as if he were considering choking her.

Her eyes shot open and she took a startled, gasping breath. "What are you—"

"Wakey wakey," Kai said brightly. "I made you breakfast."

"Get out," she snarled at him. She ripped his hand away out of reflex.

"You'll need your strength. We've got a big day of mental torture ahead of us."

"I said get out."

"Wow, you are cranky in the mornings. You know, I've found that it's really helpful if you start the day by saying something positive that you want to accomplish."

"Okay." Bonnie sat up in bed, leaning on her elbows. "Today I really want to staple your mouth closed."

"See? There you go."

Kai jumped up and brought the tray over to the bed. "Anyway, enjoy. I'll meet you downstairs. Unless you want me to chase you around again. Because that was fun and all, but it'll start to get old, won't it? We've got nothing but time, Bon, but let's not procrastinate."

She cast her eyes down. He was right, she hated to say. He could run and fight all she wanted, but it was all just stalling. And it might be easier to get down to it.

With a wink, he headed for the door. "See ya," he said.

After he had left, Bonnie stared down at the plate in front of her. Eggs Benedict. This from the maniac she'd been running from not so long ago, who she had fought and burned to a crisp. And who seemed to admire her all the more for it.

That was the problem with her plan, she realized as she scraped everything on the plate into the trash. She didn't know how to ruin somebody who was already so far gone.

XXX

He'd let her out of the duct-taped chair before too long. It was pretty clear he'd only put her there to prove a point, anyway. It wasn't like she could go anywhere once she was out of it. He'd walked by with a handful of tortilla chips, seen her struggling against the bonds, making her burned hand redder.

"You know you're a witch, right?" he'd told her.

She'd glared up at him. "I don't want to waste my magic on something as _stupid_"—she gave another tug—"as _duct tape_."

Kai had dusted salt off his hands, gotten out his pocket knife, and cut her free, shaking his head as he did. "You are nothing if not stubborn, Bon. But fix that hand, at least. It looks gross."

She'd gotten up, left the room without another word.

And now here he was, waiting for her again, wondering a little why he'd let her go.

It was almost noon before she finally made her way downstairs. She was dressed in black, like she was expecting to attend her own funeral.

"Good, there you are. Sleeping in. Kinda lazy for a Tuesday, isn't it?"

"It's always Tuesday," Bonnie said. Her jaw was set, her eyes looking straight ahead. Defiant, but also obviously tired. "And I wasn't sleeping in. I was just trying to delay this."

"I don't see the point in delaying unpleasant stuff, personally," said Kai. "Just extra stress. Who needs that?"

Bonnie settled herself on the couch. "Right. You wouldn't want me to be stressed out, would you?"

He grinned widely at her, his eyes shifting down to her hands, folded in her lap. "So, fixed that burn, huh?"

She looked down, too, as if she'd forgotten. She wasn't sorry she'd done it, but she also didn't want to admit to doing anything he'd told her to do. "Oh. Yeah."

"Good for you," said Kai.

Bonnie sighed, shifted forward in her seat. "Okay, can we just get this over with?"

Kai smiled. "You're the boss."

She frowned and reached out her hand, palm up. Instead of taking her hand, he grasped her tightly by the wrist. Paranoid, she couldn't help thinking. Even when he had her in a corner, he clung on like he was the one with everything to lose.

Bonnie shut her eyes tight, gritting her teeth against the pain she knew was coming. And it did, at first, when their hands met. But it only lasted a few seconds, and then she felt strangely numb. The inside of her head was a blank, misty space. There was a disconnect, as if the part of her that felt, hated, loved, fought—was trapped under a heavy white blanket and all that was left was a space waiting to be filled.

She heard Kai start to speak, both from inside and outside. "Okay, Bon, how are we feeling? Kinda weird? That's only natural. I should mention some side effects of this process may include nausea, lightheadedness, hallucinations, and mild depression."

She could hear the mocking, singsong tone in his voice and wanted to interrupt, tell him to go fuck himself. And she tried to say the words, but they stuck in her throat as if her whole head was filled with cotton.

That couldn't be good.

"So, what do you say we skip the foreplay and get right to it? Sound good? Okay. Riddle me this, Bonnie. What in the world are you most afraid of?"

And again, her first instinct was to shut him down. Reveal nothing. But it didn't seem that that was exactly an option. In spite of herself, she felt pieces of her answer floating to the surface of her mind. Memories, thoughts, nagging worries. But they were all just parts. That was some small comfort.

Kai's voice had gone silent inside her head as he sifted through the scattered thoughts that question had brought up. After a while, he repeated, "What are you most afraid of?"

Nothing new came to her mind, but she still didn't know exactly what Kai was seeing.

When he withdrew his hand, she expected him to look smug, to tell her that he'd gotten the key to tearing her down all nice and simple like it had been gift wrapped for him.

Instead, she came out of her trance to find him frowning slightly, running a hand distractedly through his hair.

"Problem?" Bonnie deadpanned.

"No," he said. This time he sat up, placed his hands on the sides of her head, and tried again. Everything went blank again, and she saw the same jumble of memories rising to the surface of her brain. Kai let go after what could only have been a few seconds.

"Well that's…disappointing," Kai said. "Super unhelpful."

"What?" Bonnie asked.

"Are you doing some kind of blocking thing? No, you wouldn't be. I'd be able to sense it. But still…" Kai was talking more to himself than to her.

"What did you see?"

"I thought when I looked for something it would all come in one clear picture. But it's just like…these teasers. I asked for your greatest fears and I got this thing from when you were in, what, fourth grade?, doing a book report, I got this sealed box, and I got the word 'forever.' What the hell am I supposed to do with that?"

Bonnie shrugged, her face expressionless despite the bubble of hope forming in her chest. "You think I'm gonna help you figure it out?"

Kai smiled slightly. "Right. No. Of course not."

"So sorry there's a hitch in your plan," she said with quiet malice. "And just when everything was going so well for you."

"Hey, Bon, don't get it twisted in your head. You're still gonna pay. It just might be a slower burn than we'd thought." He got up, started pacing the room, pinching the bridge of his nose as he thought. "Okay. Okay. Let's try this."

He swerved back around to meet her, this time grabbing both of her hands, lacing his fingers through hers. The suddenness of it caught her off guard, and this time it hurt again. Because she was unprepared, and because Kai was pushing harder. Everything was blank again, and echoing in her head she heard, "What happened in the fourth grade, huh? Just tell me that."

She was starting to see more of what he saw. There were scattered pictures coming to the surface, along with weird disconnected thoughts. She was seeing a row of desks with faceless kids stretching in front of her, elongated as if in a funhouse mirror. She felt her knees shaking, remembered worrying that they would give out underneath her.

"_What happened?" _Kai asked again.

But Bonnie was starting to notice something. She knew the answer to his question, of course. This was her memory. And he could draw parts of it out of her just by asking. But that was all—just parts. Just the things that first came to mind. The full story she could hold more closely, kept hidden under the layer of blank fog. Not by magic, but by sheer will. It took effort, but she could hold on.

Which meant she had control.

She let Kai try for another few minutes until he finally let go with a groan of frustration. He was starting to sweat, she could see when she opened her eyes.

"No luck?" Bonnie said slyly. "Don't feel bad. I hear a lot of guys have trouble performing sometimes."

She knew she shouldn't have done that, goaded him. It was just asking for trouble, which she got when, expressionless, Kai grabbed her arm again and sent a pulse of pain through her like a lightning bolt. But it was kinda worth it.

"Don't play dirty, Bonnie, it doesn't match the angel face."

XXX

Kai made dinner that night, which is not how Bonnie would have expected him to vent his frustration. She gave him a wide berth for the rest of the day, hovering on the edges of the magical border, but, judging by how chipper he was when he called her in to the kitchen, she wondered why she had bothered.

"Pasta carbonara!" he announced as she walked in the door. "We've got to go shopping tomorrow. We're pretty much down to ketchup and saltines after this."

He sat down at the table, across from a place setting already laid out for her, and started dishing up a mound of spaghetti.

After a few seconds of her hovering in the doorway, he said, "Come on. It'll get cold."

Bonnie eyed him contemplatively, her arms crossed as she leaned against the door frame. "I don't get how you can compartmentalize like this."

Kai, mouth full of pasta, just shrugged as if to say, "What are you talking about?"

"You're totally focused on destroying me one minute, and the next you're all buddy-buddy and domestic. It's creepy."

He swallowed and gestured to himself with the sharp end of his fork. "Sociopath, remember? Compartmentalizing kinda comes with the territory."

"We can be friends—no, not friends. Roommates, at the most—or we can be enemies. You can't have it both ways."

Kai twirled the fork between his fingers. "I can have whatever I want," he said. He watched the light reflecting off the tines and then turned his gaze towards Bonnie. "It's my world."

There was something in the blank way he looked at her that made her throat dry, and it took her longer than she would have liked to respond, sarcastically, "Yeah, you proved that today."

"Well, you know what they say," he said. "If at first you don't succeed…"

"I get it," said Bonnie. She still refused to come into the room. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of having company.

"You gonna sit?" Kai asked after a few long moments of silence.

"No," she said. "I think I'd rather starve, thanks." She turned to leave, but had a second thought before she did.

"Oh, and by the way?" said Bonnie. "About that big fear. I'll go ahead and tell you, since I doubt you'll figure it out. It was public speaking. That's what I was so afraid of in the fourth grade."

He stared up at her, his lips set in a fine line.

"I got over it," she said.

XXX

Bonnie had wanted to make a big show at dinner, but she was actually starving. She'd had to wait until after midnight before she could be fairly sure that Kai was asleep and she could go down to the kitchen again to get something.

The pot of pasta carbonara was still sitting on the stove. She debated for a minute whether she had enough pride to go for the saltines instead, but the heavenly smell wafting over to her decided for her. As quietly as she could, she got a fork out of the silverware drawer and twirled it in the pasta.

She sighed as she took a bite and wished she could punch Kai in the face all over again because _damn it, _this was so good. And he'd probably see that the rest of it was gone in the morning and give her that irritating, knowing smirk. But she was too hungry to care about that right now.

She cared about exactly two things at this moment: eating, and finding a way to take Kai down.

So far, he'd been trying to use personal details and experiences against her. A custom-made destruction. She could do the same, if she knew, really, anything about him. She quickly made an inventory of everything she had learned over the past few weeks.

1. He was psychotic.

2. Though, to be fair, the whole Gemini coven did sound pretty psycho to begin with. Nothing excused snapping and killing half your family, but it could be explained. Sort of.

3. He was annoying as hell.

4. He was an amazing cook. She didn't like acknowledging that, but it was true. Clearly.

5. He seemed to need less sleep than normal people. Probably so he could creep up on other people while _they_ were sleeping, she thought.

6. He was smart. So much the worse for her.

7. He seemed to have a soft spot for his sister.

That last one came with a question mark, but it was intriguing all the same. Sure, Kai had been playing her when he showed her that photograph and said he missed his family. But the reason she had been willing to believe him was because there had been a look on his face when he was talking about Jo that she'd never seen there before. Something fond and sad. And she didn't know if Kai was a good enough actor to fake that.

Well, it was something to think about, anyway.

As she scraped the bottom of the pot, she found herself thinking about that fifth thing. She'd assumed when she came downstairs that Kai was asleep, but now that she thought of it, she had no idea where he slept every night. It was a big house, and she'd never wanted to seek him out before now.

But now she was on the offensive. And she had to do something.

Bonnie ventured out into the hall after leaving the empty pot in the sink, tiptoeing over the boards that she knew tended to creak. She had this unsettling feeling that Kai was a light sleeper.

Her first thought was Damon's bedroom, since it was the biggest and fanciest. No luck there. And then Stefan's—not as big, but with lots of interesting books and magical artifacts. Also empty. And so were all the guest bedrooms in the East end of the house. She was starting to get paranoid, thinking maybe he had heard her get up and was waiting somewhere around the corner to jump out and give her a heart attack.

She checked the West end, most of which was a row of different guest bedrooms. Most of the doors were ajar, rooms darkened inside. Finally, at the end of the hall, she came to a closed door. She couldn't hear any sound coming from the other side or see any light through the crack in the door, but she had a feeling about it.

Bonnie wavered for a few seconds, her hand inches away from the doorknob. She wasn't sure why she was doing this, exactly, or what she expected to find. She just felt this need to be the sneaky one, the one taking charge and even crossing the line (if there was one) for a change.

As slowly and quietly as she could, she turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.

It was dark inside, but from the light from the moon and the streetlights, she could see him lying there asleep.

He'd collapsed on the bed fully dressed, his hoodie twisted around as if he'd been tossing and turning during the night. Bonnie wished, in a way, that she hadn't seen him like this. He looked years younger, infinitely more innocent. Like a high school kid who'd snuck back home after a party. Plus, he wasn't talking. Which was a definite improvement.

_Focus, Bonnie. _She was here to dig, not to sympathize.

Unfortunately, the room was pretty bare. No knick-knacks, no notes, no hint that anybody had been staying here longer than a night.

She murmured a simple spell to block out noise, and rifled through the room—the closet, cabinets, the bedside table, even under the bed. Nothing out of the ordinary. There was a bookcase in the corner, and she half-heartedly ran her fingers across the spines of the books, feeling stupid that she'd bothered coming here, wasting magic that she might need.

She was about to turn back when her fingertips ran across something with a corner sticking out, between two heavy, leather-bound books. She pulled, and found herself holding the photograph Kai had showed her nights ago. Him and his sister, arms around each other, surrounded by their family.

Bonnie smiled to herself, and her heart sped up as she looked over the age-worn picture. So, sociopath boy had some human in him after all. Because the simple fact was, he had kept this after years and years alone. There had to be a reason.

She slipped it back in to place between the books, lifting the silence spell and turning back to Kai sprawled on the bed. For a few minutes she stood over him, watching his breath go in and out.

Remembering this morning, she had the sudden, reckless idea to wake him up with her hands around his neck. See how he liked it. But it occurred to her that, knowing Kai, he probably _would_ like it.

So before she could change her mind, she found the edge of the photograph again in between the books, pulled it out, and carried it out with her in to the hall and back to her bedroom.

She would leave it on the kitchen counter for him to find in the morning; to know that she knew about it, to worry about the fact that he'd been trying to hide it.

He could spend the morning tense, and call that her version of hands around his throat.

XXX


End file.
